


Wolf's Poison

by ephona



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Animal Death, Dreams, Gen, M/M, Nightmares, Torture, abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 07:58:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephona/pseuds/ephona





	Wolf's Poison

I’m always afraid of showing love.

Not like that cheesy, smooch romantic kind of love; I know I can’t handle that.  But that kind of love you show a friend or even a good sister.  The kind of love that doesn’t require kisses or love letters or all that mushy stuff. I’ve tried too many times to love something, putting my whole heart and soul into caring and devotion the best I know how only to have that new friend taken from me.  It happened with Wolf.  It happened with the white cat.  It happened with Alluka.  I’m lucky Alluka’s still alive but she’s not really living.  At least, I think.  All I know is my love is toxic.  Everything I try and love gets infected and soon dies.  It’s a special poison of its own.  One that has no antidote that hurts me the most.

Someone remove this poison curse from me.  Please …  I don’t want to be toxic anymore.

* * *

“Go on!  C’mon go get it, Wolf!”  Bright yips and yaps ran after the cream-white bone as his tiny arms threw it as hard as he could.  Wolf’s bouncy tail waved in the air as he snatched the bone in his teeth, gnawing on it a few times, and ran back to return it to the boy.  Even for a puppy, Wolf had grown substantially compared to the seven months ago that Killua found him half-starved and sickly.  He could no longer hold his tiny body in his hands for he was now as tall as he was.  His lily-like paws were now fast, disk sized pads with lethal nails as hard as stone. If Killua desired, he could ride him around like a miniature pony.  But, regardless of their difference in size and stature, Wolf brought the bone back to his side with a look of joy in his green eyes.  

“Good boy, Wolf!” Killua rubbed the white fur on his snout.  “You want to catch it again?  Do you? Go on!  Go get it, boy!”  The instant it flew through the air, Wolf darted back to retrieve it.  Killua watched the majestic creature blissfully; proud of how he’d done everything he was told about responsibility correctly.

“You must always care for it.  When you sleep at night, sleep while holding it tightly to keep it warm.  Feed it every day, even when it’s sick.  Even if it means you have to feed it mouth-to-mouth. Teach it to hunt.  Care for its wounds.  You must  _always_  look after it, Killua.”

He’d done yet another important task and the fruits were more than satisfying to him.  From the abandoned puppy no one cared about, he’d gained a valuable companion and friend.  He knew Wolf would keep growing until he was probably the size of Mike but Wolf would be his dog.  Wolf would listen to his commands, play with him, sleep with him and maybe even do jobs with him.  He felt comfortable around Wolf and would whisper secrets into his soft, floppy ears knowing only him and Wolf would ever hear it. Raising Wolf like his father had directed was the best decision of his life so far.

“Come on, Wolf!  Bring it back, boy!”

Wolf came bounding back but, this time, his steps dragged and his tail hung low.  His ears drooped and his jowls sagged.  He reached Killua, whining, and dropped the bone, covered with a foamy white liquid, at his feet.

“Wolf … ?” From his gums dripped foul-smelling foam.  A sunken look was in his eyes pleading for something, he wasn’t sure what. Each breath he took was heavy, deep and raspy.  He kept whining and whining, foam creating a puddle on the ground.  It was then he heard his father’s voice.

“It’s suffering.  Put it out of its misery.”

“B-But he’s not.  He’s just sick, right?”

“This won’t get better. Look at it.  Look at its eyes.  It’s rabies.  Come the rain, it’ll worsen.  It won’t survive.”

“I’ll help him!  I’ll fix it!”

“You can’t.  Once it spreads, you can’t stop it.  What’s left is to put it out of its misery.”

“No! No!  It’s a lie!”

“It’s not a lie.  You know what you have to do, right Killua? Do you remember the technique I taught you?”

“No … No I don’t wanna!”

“There’s no other way to solve this, Killua!  Make it quick so he doesn’t suffer anymore.  Concentrate, don’t hesitate.  If you miss, it’ll suffer more.”

“But—“

“Rip its heart out.” As the voice resounded, blood began to mix with the white foam.  A wound began bleeding over Wolf’s chest.  “You’re Wolf’s guardian, it’s your responsibility.   That’s why you need to do it.”

“But he’s my—“

“Do it.  Do it now, Killua!”

Screaming, he watched as Wolf’s eyes looked at him, expectantly waiting for him to throw the bone again.

“I can’t!”

“Yes you can, Killua.”

“I … I …”

“Killua!  If that dog was you, I’d kill you without hesitation! Now, Killua!”

Killua’s hand sunk into the warm flesh and muscle of the chest cavity, his own claws wrapped around Wolf’s rapidly beating heart.  He let out a scream, hearing another voice chant into his ear.

“Why, Killua? Why?  Why?  Why?”

There was a squelch and a tearing noise as he rent Wolf’s heart free from his vessels, valves and out through the hole he’d created.  Wolf looked straight at him, jaws open and let out a bloodcurdling howl.

“WHY?”

* * *

The screaming he now heard was his own.  There was a dark wooden ceiling overhead and the light from the waning moon shone through the nearest window.  He was on a bed.  In a room. Covers pulled up to his chin and an oil lamp by his side.  None of that had really just happened.  His long deceased pet wasn’t screaming human words right into his ear.  It was another nightmare.  He sat up slowly, moving the covers off his chest.  He smelled blood and saw flecks of it on his fingers and under his nails.  A steady truckle ran down his nose.  Yet another nightmare where he tried to claw his own face off, of course.  He felt how deep the wound on his forehead was; just a shallow scratch, nothing that couldn’t be corrected with a bandage.  He relaxed but not for long as an arm reached out and touched his hand.

“Killua!”

“GAAH! HOLY—" He scurried back, knocking his head on the wall.  Keeled over, hands placed behind his head to soothe the bump, he looked over at the person sitting next to him.  They’d gotten right up in his face, legs tucked under one another in a seiza position and hands resting expectantly on their bare knees.  The moonlight illuminated the boy’s face enough so Killua could see the slight spray of dark freckles across his dark skin and the innate worry in his eyes.

“Killua! Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay? Hell, you scared me!”  Killua straightened himself back up again, still rubbing the back of his head.  

The boy who’d disturbed him didn’t even seem to register the fact that he’d almost cracked his skull open on the back wall.  With the motherly-like worry in his brown eyes, he mentioned, “Killua, you were talking in your sleep and screaming.”

He froze.  Parts of his nightmare came rushing back vividly into his head, everything from the smell of Wolf’s rabies-filled saliva to his father’s demands.  He rocked forward, his hand leaving the bump on his head and going towards the bleeding wound in the middle of his forehead.  “I … I was?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry about that, Gon,” was all he could bring himself to say.  He was still recovering from the nightmare himself and he surely wasn’t ready to tell anyone, even Gon, about it.  He was screaming so much within his own head, he was sure his audible screams were probably pretty awful to be awakened by.  All that seemed appropriate was an apology for waking Gon up.  

“Why were you screaming? Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yeah.  Happens sometimes.”  Nightmares happened more often than he’d like to admit.  At home, it would be very rare for him to not wake up with night terrors at least once during the week.  Most of them he tried to and soon forgot (since a lot of them were reoccurring anyway) but others still stayed pertinent in his twelve year old mind.  Usually they had something to do with Illumi training him.  Usually, he was in one of the punishment rooms, strapped up to something he couldn’t break yet.  He’d hear rattling of chains, arcing electrical pulses and the sound of sizzling flesh.  Illumi’s words of wisdom echoed in his ears over and over like a broken cassette tape. Other times, he’d be on the ground somewhere in his mansion home trying to cover and protect his bruised, naked body from shadowy figures with knives, poison, whips and sometimes even smoldering coals.  And every once in a while they were visions of the people he had targeted that day or a few days after the encounter, their bodies raising from the ground and screaming at him with their partially decomposed jaw dangling down.  Put simply, nightmares were about as routine as daily poison supplements.  They’d lessened since he’d left home to take the Hunter Exam against his family’s wishes. Even when he was brought back for a short time to be disciplined, he didn’t have any nightmares.  It was then it occurred to him.  This was the first time Gon had seen him wake up from a nightmare.

The instant he off-handedly admitted to having a bad dream, he panicked and looked at Gon straight on. “Oh man, I’m really sorry Gon!  I … well … I didn’t mean to scare you or wake you up!”

“No it’s fine.”  Gon said simply.  “Bad dreams happen.”

“Y-Yeah but …”  

“Yknow what Mito-san would always do when I woke up with bad dreams?”  He didn’t seem to be picking up or even paying attention to the fact that Killua now felt so guilty for showing Gon this side of him he was about to have a panic attack.  He shifted to a kneeling position and shoved his face about a foot away from Killua.  “She’d tell me everything was not real.  Dreams aren’t real, Killua.  Mito-san says they’re a figment of your imagination!”

 _Figment of imagination …_  Killua scoffed out loud but managed to prevent his eyes from rolling.  Gon probably had nightmares of giant fox monsters eating him or something that would actually never happen.  He wasn’t fortunate enough to have dreams like that.  “Yeah I know, Gon.  Dreams are just—"

“Was your dream about a wild dog or something?”

“What?”

Gon swung himself back, legs crossed.  “You kept saying things like ‘Wolf’ and ‘come here boy!’ like you were talking to a dog or something!  Were you dreaming about wolves and dogs?”

His body instantly began to shake.  He could feel the faintness of fear filling his entire head.  Again, the entirety of the dream surged through his mind. _“It won’t survive … put it out of its misery … Why, Killua?  Why?”_

_“But he’s my … but he’s my … “_

_“Killua!  If that dog was you, I’d kill you without hesitation!”_

He dug his nails into his head and wailed.  With a soft thud, he slammed his burning forehead onto the pillow.  Tears stung as they gushed down his cheeks and dampened his face. He could tell he’d been screaming only moments earlier; as he screamed more his throat became very raw and hoarse.  Whatever words formed in his brain never made it out cognitively.  All he made were sounds of terror, remorse and distress.  A warm pair of hands gripped his shoulders to steady him.

“Killua!  Killua, what’s going on?”

_Everything I’ve ever loved …_

“Hey, Killua!  Killua?”

_Everything I care for it just … slips through my fingers!_

“Killua!  Hey, can you hear me?”

 _I kill everything I ever touch._   Killua rolled over on his side and soon found himself retracting Gon’s comfort.  The shaking was subsiding but visions of Wolf’s beating heart in his hand played over and over on the front stage of his mind. Gon kept reaching out to him, worry over his entire body.  

“Killua … ?”

“I-I’m sorry, Gon.  I’m so sorry.”

“Why?  Killua … I don’t know what’s going on but I wanna help you.”

A few deep breaths stabilized everything.  He clutched his knees to his chest, the blood on his forehead starting to congeal.  His piercing blue eyes didn’t make eye contact anymore.  “Gon, I’m a monster.  You shouldn’t help me.”

“Come on!” Gon pouted. “You’re not a monster!”

“I am.  I’m nothing but a monster who only knows how to kill.”

“Nuh uh! You know a lot more than that!  You know how to skateboard,” Gon counted on his fingers, “You’re really good at running fast, you know a lot about video games and computers and stuff like that, and you—"

“Gon.  Someday …” He forced a lump down his throat, waiting for it to drop like a stone into his stomach.  “Someday, I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.”

Crickets from outside chirped along with the low hoot of an owl.  Distant chatter from the docks miles away could be identified.  One could almost hear the stars twinkle within the bitter silence of that room.  Killua stared at the pillow he’d bloodied while Gon didn’t deviate his gaze from Killua even for a second.  He seemed confused.  Then worried. Then almost sympathetic.  

“No you won’t, Killua. Because you’re my friend.  You’d never do that on purpose.”

“I didn’t mean I’d do it on purpose.  It might be an accident.  What if one day I just, lost it?”  A dark knifes-edge came to his voice.  

“I’d fight you off then!”

“I’m a lot stronger than you.  You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“No, I can stop you!”

“Gon, I’ve been trained to be an assassin since I could walk.”  Though his voice sounded sinister and threatening, beads of tears gathered beneath his eyelashes.  “Killing you would … not be a problem.”

With a clear of his throat, he spoke the exact words Killua didn’t know he needed. “That’s okay.  I’d rather be killed by my best friend than someone else.”

The answer initially caught the boy off guard.  The deathly aura he emitted and the rigid position he sat in instantly ceased.  A glint of amazement sparkled in his eyes along with tears that now made their way down his face.  “Wait … what?”

“If I was gonna die, I’d rather have someone I can call a friend do it.”  

“B-But  … but you’d be dead.”

“Yeah.  We’re all gonna die someday.”  Gon’s unwavering confidence shot like a bullet through the air.  “If I had to choose between being killed by you or being killed by someone else, I’d choose you.  Because I know you’d never kill me.”

“Wha—that’s your logic? Gon, I’m not that simple!”

“Yes you are!  You’d never kill me.”  A smile came over his face.  “Even if I was so sick and suffering and I was going to die anyway, you wouldn’t kill me.  Because you’re my friend, Killua!”

“But, Gon …”  

“I know I haven’t known you for long, Killua, but I can tell something really important about you.  I realized it when I talked to your brother. Unlike him, you don’t like killing. I think that maybe it’s because you’ve got what Mito calls a pure heart.  Just because you’re an assassin doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.  I know that …” Gon’s voice trailed off a bit into the night sky present outside of the window.  “Mito-san said that the best people out there have pure hearts.”

In an instant, he felt his mind calm down.  The images present in his mind along with the background voices from his childhood memories poofed away.  Now, the words Gon had said floated around and bumped into one another making a permanent impression in his mind.  He saw Wolf again; tail wagging with a bone in his mouth.  Wolf barked a few times and dropped the bone at his feet again. The joy he felt with Wolf, he felt that same sort of joy with Gon.  Only, this was different.  His fingers seemed to tell him that, one day, he’d hold Gon’s beating heart in his hand as he watched him bleed out and die.  But he had faith in what Gon had just told him about himself.  He’d never noticed before; he was nothing like Illumi. Just because he was taught to kill didn’t mean he was born to.   _Just because you’re an assassin doesn’t mean you’re a bad person . ._  .

He found himself chuckling. “Yeah … I guess you’re right, Gon.  Not sure why but, I guess you’re right.”  He reached forward and playfully flicked Gon on the forehead.  “Just don’t think of yourself like that, idiot! You’d be okay if I killed you? Stupid!  Don’t talk like that!”

“Hey, Killua!” Gon gave him a playfully punch on his shoulder.  “I was serious stop that!”

“We you should be more serious about your punches if you’re gonna be like that!”

“I didn’t want to break your arm!”

“You couldn’t break my arm even if you had me in a headlock!  Heck, you couldn’t get me in a headlock.”

“Yes I could!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Yeah I could!”

“How about you try it, idiot?”

“Later! I don’t wanna wake Mito up.”  Gon’s bubbly giggles continued as he tucked himself back under the covers.  

“I’ll kick your ass, Gon!”

“Are you feeling better then, Killua?”

He didn’t hesitate this time.  He nodded with a slight grunt of assurance.  “Thank you, Gon.  Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome!  Now let’s go back to sleep before we get in trouble!”

“Okay, okay.”  Killua gave Gon one last playful poke on his arm before burring himself back into the covers himself.  “Good night, you idiot.”

“Good night, Killua!”

Killua didn’t sleep right away.  Instead, he pondered on Gon’s words and his realization.  

Gon was the antidote. If anyone could cure him of the poison he had in his own blood, it was him.  Like in the stories Mito had told them about curses and witches, Gon was the one who could break his poison curse.  He wasn’t sure why he knew that was true but he did.  

_Gon, I don’t know if I could ever thank you enough.  I promise, right now, that no matter what you go through I will try and save your life.  Even if that means I risk my own._


End file.
